Not illusion — but reality!
And suddenly he had his answer.
Red fire exploded all about Rone, deflecting from the blade of his sword as he stood against the Mord Wraiths’ frightening assault. The walkers crouched on the stone stairway of the Croagh, a line of dark forms winding down out of the cliffs and fortress above, shrouded in smoke and mist against the gray backdrop of the dying afternoon sky. Half a dozen arms lifted and the flames hammered at the highlander, staggering him with their force. Kimber crouched behind him, shielding her face and eyes from the heat and flying rock. Whisper screamed in hatred from beneath the shadow of the stairs, lunging at the black figures as they sought to break past.
«Cogline!» Rone bellowed in desperation, fire and smoke swirling all about him as he sought the old man.
Slowly the Mord Wraiths worked their way closer. There were too many; the power of the dark magic was too great. He could not stand against them all.
«Cogline! For cat’s sake!»
A cloaked form broke toward him from the shadows above, fire spewing from both hands. Rone swung the blade about frantically, catching the arc of flame and deflecting it. But the walker was almost on top of him, the sound of its voice a sudden hiss that rose above the explosion. Then Whisper hurtled from his shelter, caught the black thing and bore it away. Moor cat and Wraith tumbled into a fountain of flame and smoke and vanished from view.
«Cogline!» Rone screamed one final time.
Abruptly the old man appeared, crooked and bent, shambling out of the billowing smoke with his white hair flying. «Stand, outlander! I’ll show the black ones fire that will truly burn!»
Howling as if gone mad, he flung a handful of crystals into the midst of the Mord Wraiths. They glittered like pieces of obsidian as they tumbled down among the dark forms and were caught in the streaks of red fire. Instantly they exploded, and white–hot flames flared skyward in a burst of blinding light. Thunder rocked the mountainside, and whole sections of the Croagh flew apart, carrying the dark forms of the Mord Wraiths with them.
«Burn, you black things!» Cogline shrilled with glee.
But the walkers were not so easily dispatched. Dark shadows, they swept back through the haze of debris and smoke, and the red fire erupted from their fingers. Cogline screamed as the fire reached him and disappeared. Flames encircled Rone and the girl he sheltered, and the walkers came for them in a rush. Sounding the battle cry of his ancestors, the highlander swung the ebony blade into their midst. Two shattered instantly, turned to ash, but the others came on. Clawed fingers closed about the sword and bore him back.
Then they were all about him.
Worn by the strain that the magic’s flow caused within her body and confused by the conflicting emotions that wracked her, Brin stood before the altar on the dais that housed the Ildatch, the book clasped tightly to her. The light failed within the tower room, and the air hung thick with dust and silt. The thing was still out there, the thing that taunted her so, the thing that had taken the form of her brother Jair. Though she sought to find it and destroy it, she could not seem to do so. The magics within her were somehow incomplete — as if for some reason they would not blend. They were one, she knew — the book and she. They were joined. The voice still whispered to her that it was so — whispered of the power that belonged to them both. Why was it so difficult then for her to bring that power to bear?
— You fight it, dark child. You resist it. Give yourself over —
Then the air exploded about her, the magic of the one she hunted bursting through dust and half–light, and dozens of images of her brother filled the chamber. All about her the images appeared, slipping through the haze toward the dais, calling out her name. She staggered away, stunned. Jair! Are you truly here? Jair… ?
— They are evil, dark child. Destroy them. Destroy —
Obedient to the voice of the Ildatch, though she recognized still from somewhere deep within that it was wrong, she lashed out with her magic, the sound of the wishsong filling the cavernous room. One by one, the images disintegrated before her eyes, and it was as if she were killing Jair over and over again, destroying him anew with each image shattered. But still the images came, those that remained closing the gap between them, reaching for her, touching…
Then she screamed. There were arms about her, arms of flesh and blood, warm and alive, and Jair was before her, holding her close. He was real, not imagined, but a living being, and he spoke to her through the wishsong. Images filled her mind, images of who they had been and who they were, of childhood and beyond — all that had been in their lives and all that now was. Shady Vale was there, the clustered buildings of the community in which she had grown, the clapboard dwellings mingled with stone cottages and thatched–roof hues, and the people settled back at day’s close for an evening meal and the small pleasures that come with a joining together of family and friends. The inn was filled with laughter and small talk, bright with candle and oil light. Her home showed, its walks and hedges folded in shadow, the aged trees colored by autumn’s touch and ablaze with fading streaks of sunlight. Her father’s strong face was smiling in reassurance, her mother’s dark hand reaching to stroke her cheek. Rone Leah was there, and her friends, and… . One by one the supports that had been stripped from her and so ruthlessly crushed were put back again. The images flooded through her, clear, sweet, and strangely cleansing, filled with love and reassurance. Weeping, Brin collapsed into her brother’s embrace.
The voice of the Ildatch lashed out at her.
— Destroy him! Destroy him! You are the dark child —
But she did not destroy him. Lost in the weave of the images that swept through her and tapped deep into a wellspring of memories she had thought lost forever, she could feel the person that she had once been returning. That part of her which had been, lost was being put back again. The ties of the magics that had bound her close began to loosen, drawing back and leaving her free.
The voice of the Ildatch was suddenly frantic.
— No! You must not release me! You must hold me close. You are the dark child —
Ah, but she was not! She felt it now, sensed it through the fabric of the lies that she had been persuaded to accept. She was not the dark child!
Jair’s face lifted before her as if from out of a deep fog. His familiar features blurred and then sharpened, and he was speaking softly to her.
«I love you, Brin. I love you.»
«Jair,” she whispered in reply.
«Do what you were sent here to do, Brin — what Allanon said you must. Do it quickly.»
One final time she brought the Ildatch high above her head. She was not the dark child nor was the book the servant that it had claimed to be. It had said that she would be master of its power, but it had lied. No living thing became master of the dark magic — only its slave. There could be no joining of flesh and blood to the magic; however well intentioned. In the end, any use of it must destroy the user. She saw is clearly now and felt a sudden panic spring from the book. It was alive and is could feel; let it, then! It would have subverted her; it would have drained her life from her as it had drained the lives of so many and turned her into a thing as dark and twisted as the walkers, the Skull Bearers before them, or the Warlock Lord himself. It would have set her loose upon the Four Lands and all who lived within them, to bring the darkness again…
With a heave, she threw the book from her. It struck the stone flooring of the tower with stunning force. The bindings shattered, breaking apart. Pages ripped and scattered.
Then Brin Ohmsford used the wishsong. It sounded hard and quick as it caught up the remnants of the book in its power and turned the Ildatch to impotent dust.
At the edge of the Croagh, on the cliffs below Graymark, Rone felt the clawed fingers of the Mord Wraiths release their grip as if stung by a fire they could not master. The cloaked forms drew back, writhing and twisting against the gray light of the slowly darkening sky. Their voices sounded as one in the sudden silence, a shriek of anguish and terror. All along the length of the Croagh leading down to the ledge where Rone had struggled to hold them, the Wraiths convulsed like shaken rag dolls.
«Rone!» Kimber screamed, pulling him clear of where the foremost of the black things stumbled blindly about.
Flames burst from out of Wraiths’ fingers and exploded from their cowled faces. Then, one after another, they disintegrated, falling apart like shattered earthed statues, crumbling and drifting to the stone of the ledge. In seconds, the Mord Wraiths were no more.
